Fresh install

[MatthewR]

If i am to do a fresh install on my mac, will i loose items such as microsoft office, music i have saved, photos etc?

 

[The Boosh!]

I was under the impression you do a back up via time machine before doing a fresh install, then just bang it all back on there.

 

[MatthewR]

hmm, must go look for my external hard drive

ahh what the hell I've been a good boy this year.. can anyone recommend one up to £50?

 

[MatthewR]

Also, when i installed lion, i never made a boot disk. can i do this now? or will i have to use my snow leopard disk and buy lion again?

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Why do you want to do a fresh install ? If you're going to wipe the HDD, then yes, you'll lose everything on there.

 

[Sparky]

If you have a spare 2.5 data then you can buy an enclosure for 2-10 pounds

 

[Sparky]

Shitty make but I bought one of these a while back
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005JEXJQ4/?tag=cliospnet01-21

 

[MatthewR]

I want to do a fresh install as I'm upgrading the ram, so want to make thinks 'like new' but don't want to loose documents, photos, and music.

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

*facepalm*

It's OS X, not Windows. Shove the RAM in, and get on with your day.

 

[Munson]

As above. Install RAM. Done.

 

[Sparky]

I went from 2GB to 8GB with no reinstall, completely fine. Unlesss there is another reason?

 

[Addicted]

You DONT need to reinstall an OS for a RAM upgrade btw!

 

[Munson]

FYI a normal reinstall will leave your home directory intact, so you won't lose anything. You'll just get fresh system files. However, if there were any files causing issues in your home directory, they will remain.

Either way, when embarking on something like this, you should ALWAYS backup your data. In fact you should always have backups anyway. I use Time Machine, and I also periodically take proper hard copies of my entire home directory and put them on a different drive even to my Time Machine disc. Mostly because my business data is literally priceless. If I lost my business data it would be a career shaking event.